BMW M2 with manual transmission only?

In an interview with AutoExpress UK, Carsten Priest, head of product development for M, touched on the subject of the future BMW M2. Without going into …

In an interview with AutoExpress UK, Carsten Priest, head of product development for M, touched on the subject of the future BMW M2. Without going into specifics, Priest made some remarks concerning the hot coupe.

“If you look at the M3 and M4, it’s not just about putting in the biggest engine with the biggest displacement and highest horsepower,” Carsten Priest, head of product development for M, explained.

“It’s about the right balance between power and weight, so you have a car that’s quick enough for acceleration, but agile enough and with an additional edge.”

But the most interesting remark came next.

BMW hints that the M2 might just be a manual transmission-only model since the company is being careful to ensure the M2 doesn’t step on the M4’s toes. “You don’t want to drag people down from an M3 or an M4. That wouldn’t be sensible,” Priest told the magazine. “If you remember the 1 Series M Coupe there’s always a bit of overlap, but we offered the manual gearbox only – that was one of the main differences.”

Now these words might simply be part of BMW’s marketing plan and in fact the M2 will come with the highly-acclaimed 7-speed DCT, a transmission that even us wish the 1M had.

What would happen with the M235i though? Priest doesn’t go into that subject, but says that “a host of race-inspired chassis upgrades should transform the M2 into a purer, faster driving machine, on both road and track. Significantly stiffer fixed-rate dampers will replace the adaptive dampers from the M235i, saving weight and tightening up body control.”

CFRP is expected to play an important role in the construction of the M2, along with the mechanical limited-slip differential.

“If you look at what the M235i stands for, it’s a lot of driving excitement and emotion for sure, but it doesn’t go as far as an M core model. To qualify as an M core model, it would have to go quite a big step further.”

Production of the BMW M2 will begin in November 2015 and sales commence in 2016.